Tag: history
Package Manager Patents
A reference list of patents and applications relevant to package manager design, with notes on prior art.
A Flower Traveled in My Blood
Historical nonfiction like A Flower Traveled in My Blood can feel uncomfortably voyeuristic. I wasn't aware of the military dictatorship in Argentina — Chile under Pinochet, yes, but Argentina no. For as much human kindness and empathy as there is, humanity can demonstrate a near limitless appetite for violence and cruelty. Both cruelty and violence were in ample supply in Argentina during the late 70s and early 80s. The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo were formed in 1977 to locate missing children kidnapped during the reign of the military junta running from approximately 1976 to 1983. The reign of the junta was, of course, tacitly approved and materially supported by the government of the United States. This was a pattern of behavior on the part of the United States that was claimed to target the expansion of communism and left wing ideology. The practical impact was pain, suffering and trauma on a massive scale across South America. Up to 30,000 people were disappeared during the reign of the Argentine military dictatorship. The abuelas, with the help of American geneticist Mary-Claire King, have located about 140 children kidnapped or born in detention centers during this period. They also helped establish genetic and investigative infrastructure in Argentina, leaving this and those they located as an enduring legacy. A Flower Traveled in My Blood is a deeply personal, traumatic and, often, hopeful tale. The drive and focus necessary to pursue the truth under threat, as the abuelas did, is nothing short of incredible. They shared their struggle, their blood, their disappointments and their joys. That their struggle coincided with advancements in technology to enable the identification of victims both living and dead is serendipitous. The entire country had been plunged into darkness and the abuelas methodically put lives back together for themselves and everyone else that suffered through it.
Manufacturing Consent
The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda. That Manufacturing Consent is nearly as old as I am and introduces a concept as enduring as the propaganda model of communication is both depressing and a testament to the fact that Herman and Chomsky were and remain correct in their thinking. If anything, it's a model that has become increasingly relevant as mass media has been hollowed out by technology companies and subjected to ongoing attacks by both the politically powerful and the wealthy (of which there is an ever increasing overlap). Ownership: mainstream media has remained in the hands of large corporations or bought up by conglomerates. This is also true in cases where tech and social media platforms have replaced traditional outlets. Advertising: media outlets remain dependent on advertising for revenue, but this revenue continues to shrink as more and more advertising spend is directed to social media platforms. The reach promised in exchange for outlets embracing these platforms has never materialized in a way that makes up for that loss of revenue. Sourcing: outlets still depend on access journalism and reporting. This shapes their coverage as access to sources is contingent on concessions they make to maintain said access. Flak: this facet of the model is perhaps the most important at the moment. Reporting is attacked, news organizations are attacked, journalists are attacked, sources are deliberately unmasked, free speech is attacked. There's an unceasing assault on any news and reporting that does not align with the prescribed narrative. Independent journalists and outlets are the only ones taking risks in the face of these threats to deliver well-informed and important work to the public and their subscribers. Fear ideology: this has been relevant since Manufacturing Consent (when it was identified as anti-communism) with no sign of diminishing. Any reporting that runs counter to the government narrative is attacked using national security and fear of external threats as a basis to delegitimize or suppress said reporting. What we've lived with and continue to live with is an information environment that does a disservice to the public by relaying only what this model allows for. How do you hold power to account when you're beholden to it?
Murder the Truth
Murder the Truth is another entry in a line of books illustrating the ways in which immense wealth has warped the foundations of American society. We all watch in horror as things bend, fold in and wonder when, just when, it all snaps. The influence that wealth provides manifests itself in myriad different ways but, in this case, it's used in the pursuit of attacking journalists and burying the truth. David Enrich has not only done his research, he's lived through exactly what this book covers. He presents case after case, tracing a thread through them, of powerful interests focused in on upsetting the precedent set in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan . We, as a society, have benefitted from journalists holding power to account and are now living through a period in which they are under attack whenever they attract the attention of anyone with the money to weaponize the legal system against them. Enrich doesn't have a solution here, but he does raise the alarm. Journalists should be paid more but have seen the enterprises that employ them robbed of revenue by tech platforms. In many cases, tech founders then turn around and attack the journalistic institutions they impoverished for having the temerity to report on any number of misdeeds. Journalists shouldn't need exorbitantly expensive libel insurance. We should be championing a free press but, instead, it's under attack from all sides.
El Paso
El Paso is a heartfelt, beautifully written tale that manages to connect the city's history to that of her family's, other migrant families and the dynamics of immigration woven deeply into the fabric of the United States. I knew so little of this history and it was refreshing to learn about it — I knew El Paso in the abstract. The name, Beto O'Rourke, At the Drive-In , the shooting at the Walmart, I knew these things, but I didn't know what made the city what it is. Jazmine Ulloa manages to weave the micro in with the macro as she touches on the lives of historical figures, her relatives and the broader story of immigration. It's a narrative woven such that its elements are inseparable because they are, in fact, that — it's simply a question of the story being properly told. The United States is a country of immigrants, within it El Paso is a city of immigrants. It's deeply beautiful, often tragic and a history that's still being written. Ulloa centers people and through them tells a story rooted in struggle, politics, journalism and shared humanity.
Killer Clown
I have an on and off again relationship with true crime. I found I'll Be Gone in the Dark to be both riveting and terrifying. Adnan's Story was another gripping read. [Killer Clown](Killer Clown) isn't a bad read, really, but it feels a bit flat and fairly clinical when considered as a whole. John Wayne Gacy was, without question, a monster. His deeds were calculated, cruel and vile. In this account and in others, the man was made out to be garrulous, personable and odd . He evaded detection and capture for long as he did due to a lack of skepticism, the total absence of the now pervasive surveillance under which we now find ourselves and the oversight of the law enforcement officers and departments that encountered him. The wheels fell off when Gacy captured and killed Rob Piest. What followed was close, almost friendly, surveillance by detectives and a horrifying excavation of Gacy's crimes. Terry Sullivan was one of the prosecutors when Gacy stood trial and his retelling is perfectly accurate, sympathetic and a bit dry. It's procedural in a way that's consistent with the author's profession. Work with those uncovering the facts, present them, convince the jury and justice is served. Interesting for its history and empathy, but not the easiest read given the subject matter and the manner in which it was written.
To Catch a Fascist
An easy, extremely engaging read and a necessary journey into forces defining our modern political moment. The author clearly sits with and sympathizes with the antifascists covered here, a sentiment made clear throughout the narrative and presentation. That's the only reasonable, acceptable stance. Mathias spends a good deal of time with one antifascist, identified as "Vincent", covering his infiltration into one of many modern, utterly abhorrent, domestic extremist organizations (Patriot Front, in this case) and through that narrative, pulls in various threads and patterns that he then expands on. There are many words spent on doxxing as a practice to exact, not revenge really, but societal consequences for modern American fascists. It's online detective and vigilante work and it's work that, frankly, I do not disagree with. Doxxing has a long history, one which Mathias ventures into here. In Buffalo, NY during the 1920s a group calling itself the Knights of the Invisible Jungle of the Tiger’s Eye — yes — the Knights of the Invisible Jungle of the Tiger’s Eye helped unmask members of the KKK with the support of the town's mayor. The town went on to display a complete list of klan members at the local police station. Doxxing, however, is an equal opportunity weapon, one which the fascists discussed herein will readily wield against antifascists (and do, in "Vincent"'s case). Masked parties on both side of an ideological chasm fight to unmask one another. Mathias' raises the possibility of doxxing losing its power (for fascists at least) as the Overton window is pushed ever further towards mainstreaming their beliefs. It's hard to inflict consequences on fascists when the party in power is fascist and fascist ideology animates the Republican party and its base. We're not there yet, however — why else would the party's modern paramilitary be so hellbent on wearing masks? What is also clear hear is that antifa is, by no means, a unified force. It's defined by its opposition to fascism and all good people should be united in opposition to fascism.
The Unfinished Instruction
On Gaudí, the Sagrada Família, and what happens when the architect dies a century before the building is done.
Package Management Blog Posts
Blog posts, talks, and essays that changed how people think about dependency management.
Collecting The Carts
On bottle deposits, cheap local commercials, projectile-style turkeys, union-busting grocery stores, and the friend of mine who showed me the ropes.
Requiem For Early Blogging
From Requiem For Early Blogging: [I]f you wanted people to read your blog, you had to make it compelling enough that they would visit it, directly, because they wanted to. And if they wanted to respond to you, they had to do it on their own blog, and link back. [...] I think of this...
Why I'm Fascinated by Package Management
From gaming magazine CDs to dependency graphs
The Nazi Mind
The Nazi Mind is informative, but not profound. It's populated by vignettes about the atrocities committed by Germany during World War II. There were vignettes I didn't know about, who was involved and insights into how and why these stories occurred. I'm not sure that Rees succeeds in tying these into the points he makes in concluding the book. What is undeniable is that we're seeing warning signs now that Rees highlights here. Context and our information ecosystem have collapsed. Conspiracy theories run rampant. The US has a presidential administration that refuses accountability, lies, equivocates and deceives the people it should be beholden to at every available opportunity. Masked police are kidnapping people off the street, attacking citizens that seek to hold them accountable and are depositing their victims in camps. We're traveling through and descending further into a dark period in history and there's no denying it will get worse. It's unclear whether Rees is right and perhaps he's general enough in his warnings to be exactly that. It's a necessary warning and there are parallels between its core subject and what we are seeing now. I only hope we can avoid repeating the crimes at the core of the text.
Package Manager Timeline
A chronological timeline of package manager releases, major milestones, and significant events in the history of software dependency management.
Package Management Papers
A collection of academic research papers on package management systems, dependency resolution, supply chain security, and software ecosystems.
The Smashing Machine
This is an undeniable tour de force on the part of all involved. It's the only movie I've seen Dwayne Johnson in where he disappears into his role and his character. He's such a towering, imposing figure that disappearing into a role is nearly impossible. It turns out that what he needed was to be cast in the role of a groundbreaking UFC fighter. It's unmistakably a Safdie brothers film — a warm, gritty cinematography, pervasive anxiety, a flawed protagonist. It works beautifully. Mark Kerr is undeniably sympathetic and flawed. He's a participant in a sport that's brutal by design, a sport that leads to addiction, an addiction that strain's his relationship and the cumulative effects of both, given enough time, lead to an inevitably short "career". Professional athletes often get paid quite a bit, quite briefly. Kerr gets paid relatively little, quite briefly because he's one of the groundbreaking athletes who preceded his particular sport's popularity. It's worth noting that the score is perfectly understated and adds so much to this film. Whether it's a solitary sax line, a lone drum performance or a spaced out, unexpected rock piece, it all works so unexpectedly well that anything else wouldn't make sense. I hope A24 keeps putting out incredible movies about sports I don't care for. : Dawn is unbearable and capably rendered by Emily Blunt.
Chokepoints
This was a thorough, engaging and — at times — dry explanation of sanctions and modern US and western economic warfare. The author builds a compelling case for the use of economic weapons, but makes a compelling case that they need to be used cooperatively and timed appropriately. There are isolated cases where this isn't true, such as the US taking action to shut a bank facilitating money laundering off from the broader financial system in a targeted act of financial warfare against North Korea. But, broadly speaking, the weapons in question are at their most effective when properly coordinated with allies to help squeeze a given target and prevent end runs around sanctions or other workarounds to mitigate their impacts. Sometimes this cooperation was willing, in other cases it was coerced as when the US threatened any and all banks doing business with Iran in an effort to damage its economy. Fishman also lays out a detailed case explaining the use of sanctions and controls aimed at curbing China's influence by targeting both Huawei and ZTE. Trump engaged in quite a bit of unilateral economic action against China in his first term targeted specifically at their tech industry. He spent a lot of time ranting about trade deficits like the bellicose idiot he is, but the practical focus was on tech. The section on the effort to curtail Russia's military ambitions with respect to Ukraine is particularly detailed and compelling. In this case the US had time to prepare their choice of economic weapons as Russia had broadcast its ambitions well in advance via both intelligence failures and its theft of Crimea. So, where does one find leverage with a country as vast and powerful as Russia? The US elected to sanction its central bank while also cutting it off from SWIFT, severing it from international banking. From there, it carefully crafted measures to drive down Russia's oil and gas income, while trying not to disrupt the global economy. To do this, the US and its allies sanctioned companies supporting the sale of Russian oil and gas in cases where the price exceeded $60/barrel (specifically insurance and shipping providers). Has this stopped the war? No, not hardly, but it's certainly tamped down the financial muscle Russia can put behind it. Sadly, the book concludes before the return of the mad king and his wanton application of tariffs and related policy failures. Said failures are borne out of economic illiteracy and all of the lessons learned during a life spent failing upwards while slapping your stupid name on trash products. Tariffs on. Tariffs off. Tariffs on. Tariffs off. Turns out this time the target of the warfare is the voting public.
Copaganda
Copaganda is the most important book I've read in a while both for its impact and its insight. As a working civil rights attorney Alec Karakatsanis is supremely qualified to expound on the subject of the book's namesake. "Copaganda convinces people that, sadly, much to our discomfort as caring people, there is no way to solve the serious problems of our society. Having reluctantly come to that conclusion, we now have to expand authoritarian measures to manage those problems through violence. We wish we didn’t have to do this, but we’ve tried everything else" Karakatsanis absolutely demolishes the credibility of ostensibly well-respected institutions like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and journalists from Vox and elsewhere that have become edge-lord copaganda peddlers. Much like The AI Con skewered the proponents of the covered technology as "synthetic text extruding machines", Karakatsanis does the same to the criminal justice system by consistently referring to it as the "punishment bureaucracy". Justice isn't served, but the carceral industry is. He backs each point with myriad pertinent anecdotes — from compounding fines used to ruin the lives of the poor, cash bail as a tool to do the same, criminalizing homelessness and addiction rather than treating the root causes, ignoring assaults, domestic violence and other crimes committed by police when calculating statistics, cherry-picking data, ignoring wage theft and corporate crime wholesale, coercing defendants accused of minor offenses to plead out because the "justice system" is incapable of handling of cases created to fund municipalities through fines and line the pockets of private companies profiting from institutionalized injustice. It's a brutal, unfair and — arguably — criminal system in its own right. We don't need more police. We absolutely don't need more ICE agents, we don't need more state violence sold as a solution to problems that it exacerbates. We need far fewer police. ICE should be abolished outright. Similar organizations need serious examination and reduction. This system is a harmful bureaucracy if you're looking for an example of one. We need support for low income housing, compassionate approaches to treating addiction and mental health issues, broadly available and freely provided public health care and an actual understanding of the problems we're trying to solve. Institutions professing to have journalistic integrity that engage in peddling copaganda are demonstrating that they have no integrity at all. : Well, once respected and now a joke. : Perhaps respected at some point, now also a joke.
Summer of Fire and Blood
I often enjoy reading about history and know that we can learn a lot from it. We can certainly learn from the German peasant uprising but I'm not sure I took as much away from this book as I would've liked. It's well-written, well-researched and clearly constructed but my own lack of context did it a disservice. I'm not familiar with Christian ritual, theology, history or Martin Luther. A class struggle, a religious struggle and a failed revolt. It was a fine read and one worth getting through if you're interested in the topic and have the proper historical context. It was recommended to me based on the economic underpinnings of the conflict, but it struggled to hold my interest.
Stories Are Weapons
Topical, well-researched, compelling, concise. Framing recent campaigns, memes, psyops — whatever you'd like to call them as propaganda and weaponry feels both novel and accurate. It's a helpful framing for the moment we've found ourselves in. Everyone, everywhere lobbing ideological grenades at anyone they identify as different from them. Often the most readily available information isn't the correction information. That rapid relay doesn't allow for thoughtful analysis and a commitment to accuracy. Giving everyone a platform, catering to the viral spread of said information simply compounds this. It's an epistemological crisis of our own making and one we've committed to accelerating by making social media pervasive and now flooding it with knowingly fictitious, deceptive AI slop. It's a culture of manipulation, deception and paranoia that's grown out of American institutions in the FBI and other agencies, from advertising, from a strangling of institutions intended to uncover the truth and prevent it in an unbiased fashion. It's ignorance as a virtue and it's a slow-motion societal collapse driven by our commitment to live as though the narrative of our choosing is truth. Stories are weapons and we live in a failing information ecosystem where all we have is the stories we tell ourselves and tell others. We wall ourselves off, stockpile our ideological weapons with like-minded individuals and wait for someone to lob them at. Truth doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. A righteous commitment to our beliefs — wrong or right — toxic and otherwise is what we've been reduced to.
No More Tears
Johnson & Johnson is a healthcare empire and a household empire in the United States (and elsewhere, perhaps? I can't speak to that). That they are so deeply entrenched and recognizable is a crediting to their marketing and fierce defense of their brand. That reputation is undeserved and trust in them is misplaced. J&J knew for years that their was asbestos contamination in their baby powder. They sold hip replacements that they knew were flawed, caused harm and death and then profited by selling parts for subsequent surgeries to fix said replacements when they failed. They sold risperdal despite knowing about a high probability of permanent, damaging side effects. Procrit was at best useless. Duragesic fentanyl patches dwarfed the damage caused by the Sacklers. Vaginal mesh caused endless complications and pain. Their COVID vaccine was less effective with more harmful side effects. Tylenol? Careful with that — it'll hit your liver. Ortho Evra? That'll release dangerous levels of hormones and fail in myriad other ways. And yet, here they are. I would have hoped the FDA would have stepped in in any of these cases. All of them. At least some of them. But the author makes a clear and compelling use that they're often useless, captured by lobbyists, underfunded and beholden to the companies they regulate. Yet another example in the US' long history of allowing for regulatory capture. Doctors get wined, dined and paid to pitch J&J's products (and those of other, similar conglomerates) to a degree that's outright criminal, though it's rarely treated as such. No other healthcare system is as expensive or ineffective. None in the developed world loses a greater share of its participants to preventable deaths. Middle-class Americans have long accepted the system's downsides under the mistaken belief that the poor are the only ones disadvantaged. We have an embarrassment of a medical system. The creep and American embrace of privatization has delivered few benefits and endless harms. Classic and endemic corruption. The profit motive is fundamentally at odds with the goal of providing quality care. Don't expect these companies to do right by you, expect them to do right by their shareholders. Advocate for better regulation, advocate against privatization and know that these companies aren't designed to help you. They're designed to maximize profits and erode any institutions, regulations and guardrails that get in the way of that goal.
On Air
I've never been a fan of NPR in any meaningful sense — I trust their reporting, find it credible and reliable but have never become attached to its more lauded shows and the hosts attached to them. Steve Oney does a magnificent, engaging and thorough job of reporting the organization's raucous early days, its reporting missteps, scandals and successes. While I may not be deeply invested in NPR, I find it — as an institution — to be trustworthy and an essential part of the public discourse. It's fair-minded, reliable and fallible, as any human organization is going to be. Oney manages to make this retelling both fair minded without becoming clinical. I was never aware of much of this history — the drug use, efforts to unionize, the reckless spending of CEO Frank Mankiewicz, the Juan Williams firing and on and on. I am aware of the ebb and flow of conservative efforts to cut funding to NPR, PBS and the CPB. Reagan tried it and failed, Mitt Romney advocated for it and the altogether more fascistic, imbecilic and incompetent Trump administration seeks to do the same. They dislike NPR because they accuse it of having a liberal bias which is, at most, a bit of a tilt. A bent? Reality has a liberal bent and today's conservatives are often at war with reality. We're lucky to have NPR, we should fight for its continued survival, particularly when we already underfund public institutions like it and have managed to gut journalism as an industry writ large. : Reagan's presidency was an abject failure with bad policy, scandal and consequences we're still living with today. One of the worst modern presidents. Truly. : See the at war with reality bit and the epistemological crisis we currently find ourselves in.
Red Scare
History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. Our current political moment is one that rhymes with the red scare . Clay Risen does an admirable job covering the history of and events around the post-war red scare and the hysteria fueled House Un-American Activities Committee . Joseph McCarthy often gets pegged as the face of the committee but it preceded him and stumbled on for a bit after him. He was one of many vile politicians that have cropped up throughout American history and his strident accusation of disloyalty was enough to warrant a dictionary definition of a word based on his name. Unscrupulously accusing people of disloyalty. We don't have committees now and I doubt we'll see them — the current administration's approach to dealing with disagreement, protest and dissension is more the denial of a trial and unquestioned rendition to a gulag variety. Republicans have an undeniable streak of claiming the sole right to patriotism and patriotic behavior while engaging the exact opposite. Much (if not all) of what they do is projection. The accused aren't disloyal, they're speaking freely and critically. They're dissenting from Republican orthodoxy. In a country that professes to cherish free speech and open discussion of ideas, they allow for anything but. They want free speech for themselves and oppression for dissenters. They want the freedom to torture and belittle captive audiences. That is un-American. It's American to disagree, it's American to discuss a broad range of ideas, it's un-American to quash them. It was a tension then, it's a tension now. The red scare ruined lives and Joseph McCarthy embraced that pursuit. He deserves the revulsion that comes with the mention of his name and is no better than the paranoid and vindictive J. Edgar Hoover. I learned a fair bit about the scare before McCarthy's entry into and usurpation of the spotlight and it's much-needed fall and dissolution. One of the more engaging books on US history I've read through recently and it's one of the many dark chapters in the country's history.
Death Is Our Business
This felt like more of a primer on Wagner than a comprehensive history. Nonetheless, it’s a compelling explainer of private military companies (PMCs) with Wagner at the heart of it. From the conflict in Ukraine to its presence in Africa and Syria, Wagner has been a force for Russian military abuse and aggression abroad. The Russian pretext for the war in Ukraine is utter nonsense, but Wagner has helped them further their aims (for a price). Blackwater has often been an American analogue and there are many other such PMCs in operation. States maintain the monopoly on the use of force while outsourcing abuses and minimizing casualty reporting. It’s all a rather appalling practice that’s made visibility by Wagner’s recent abuses, but not exclusive to them and their benefactors.
Meltdown
A neatly organized chronology of yet another bank failure. You get some history on Swiss banking, a good deal of insight into the firm and a conclusion that ends with its failure and an acquisition by rival UBS (there's even a brief aside about the run on Silicon Valley Bank). It's well-written and interesting enough, but it's also a story we've seen before. Banks are private institutions that serve as important financial infrastructure (within our current system), get greedy, take on too much risk, fail and get bailed out. If (in the US) we pass any legislation that regulates them it is unfailingly watered-down or repealed when the next administration takes over. That Credit Suisse failed doesn't feel surprising, it feels destined given the nature of the industry and the age of the company.
When the Sea Came Alive
I've never — probably will never — be a history buff. I enjoy reading about it, value the insights gleaned from studying it but never find myself getting lost in it. I don't actively seek it out, I do value it. The latter doesn't require that I do the former. This all applies to World War II. I took advanced placement history in high school, passed, watched Band of Brothers when our class was functionally complete ahead of the school year and skipped history in college. Know the conflict, not the details. I do like World War II movies. Fury , Inglourious Basterds , Overlord and on and on. I love apocalyptic (mostly post apocalyptic) movies and the apocalyptic nature of the conflict fit nicely into that niche. Anyways. A book, a book. This was a compelling read and a more compelling read than most. A lot of history can be dry and clinical, while this takes the opposite tack of retelling the events of the day through disparate narratives of those that experienced it (from all sides even). I'll freely admit I never knew what all went into planning D-day — the feints, the deception, the logistics — and that's all retold here by those training for the day. Breach a fortified position by force and deception. There's a lot to learn here and a lot to take in by the folks who lived through this day (and there's so much to tell about — ostensibly — this single day). There's a sense of the sheer scale of the planned invasion provided by just how many narratives from different events and soldiers the author assembled. It's a singular act when viewed from far enough away, but composed of so much effort, heroism, sacrifice and horror that each participant lived through. We have more advanced technology today but we've used it to fracture and attack each other. Achieving something this unified, that required this much planning and sacrifice seems impossible now. War is hell. Now is hell. Now is not war (I guess). Good book. : The most believable of the bunch. : Bringing in floating, man-made docks to resupply the war effort too? Pretty ingenious.
Smoke and Ashes
This made for a fascinating read about a historical topic I only had a vague familiarity with. It's detailed inasmuch as it connects the spread of opium's history, production and consumption — meticulous research as narrative. Chinese rulers had banned opium, the British grew it in India and fought two wars with China to force legalization, knowing full well how addictive it was. He traces the impact on India, China and everywhere in between as colonial Britain fought for the right to profit off of addictive human suffering (the Dutch played their part two). He pulls in his own experience writing fiction that touches on the opium trade, transforms what could be dry history into a compelling narrative, pulls in the Sackler family's involvement with a well-deserved reference to Patrick Radden Keefe's Empire of Pain . One of the better, more thorough, pieces of historical non-fiction I've read recently. : By vague familiarity I mean that I'd heard that opium wars had happened. : A more compelling, focused read that covers Purdue's actions in isolation.
Hooked On Velcro
How Velcro became one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, despite simultaneously gaining an unfashionable reputation.
Ask Not
The author's qualifier that they've taken creative license with some of these accounts is...well, it does a lot to strike down a lot of trust you might have had in what follows. Everything that's described is both salacious and not exactly beyond belief. The Kennedy family is often regarded as royalty, the entire concept of which is (or was?) anathema to the American experiment (the results of which haven't been great, but that's a larger discussion). There have always been rumors about JFK's affairs that get played down, the incident in Chappaquiddick with Ted and, well, on and on. People in power do whatever they can to stay in power. Rich people ascribe to themselves admirable qualities that they neither possess nor exhibit while trampling on whoever they please to retain that status. Big family name, seriously questionable history (lord knows what harm will be caused by the family member in the current, viciously cruel administration) and artistic license taken in the retelling. Not the best book, but the family it covers has an often sterling reputation that isn't deserved.
The Witch
Picking apples, making pies. The atmosphere throughout this movie is so weighty it could sink a ship. Maybe it should have. Every step of it is brilliantly acted, shot in gray-ish, desaturated hues and hellishly dark. Move to the new world, bring the kids, it'll be a fresh start. IN HELL. Not the scariest movie, but a remarkable debut for Eggers and horrifying in its own way. The real monster here is the family's religious zeal. And maybe the goat. The goat is fine for most of it though. Or perhaps it's malnourishment and whatever's in the water. Strike out (get cast out?) on your own with the kids, have the oldest one parent the youngest, blame her when it goes sideways, coddle all the other kids that you prefer to her and then get even angrier when it goes even further sideways. I'd argue it would've gone better if you hadn't tried to pray your way out of it (that's a lot of firewood too — do you need that much?). I'm not surprised Thomasin and Black Phillip snapped after all that. Anyways. Fantastic movie in all respects and baffling that this is Eggers' debut. I liked Nosferatu more, but I'll be watching whatever he slaps his name on next (and whatever I've missed that he already has).
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties
This was a fascinating read that did a lot to punch holes in the default narrative of the Manson murders that Bugliosi established in Helter Skelter . What it doesn't do is draw any definitive conclusions. It's a decade plus of pulling at threads, unraveling what was thought to be a factual account of the Manson murders, CIA ties, law enforcement complicity, fabricated (or embellished) testimony and a presentation of what the author uncovers. I respect the author's unwillingness to draw conclusions. You can't, really. Manson was clearly guilty of grievous wrongdoing, as was the family — there were certainly issues with and myriad unanswered questions around all of it. The author sheds light on those questions as best he can and clearly engaged a dogged investigation to uncover everything he could, but none of it coalesced into a clear picture. Go into this knowing you won't get the resolution you might want, but you'll get more insight limited by the availability of living witnesses, their willingness to talk and the documentation the author fought to uncover.
The Return
This was pretty to look at, well acted, rendered and about everything you'd expect from an objectively great film and I think it is that — a great film. But it's a great film that didn't click for me. A movie made for critics? I dunno. Fiennes was clearly committed to the role and Binoche is excellent. I'm not disappointed nor upset that I watched it, but I don't think I'd give it another watch.
Now Is Usually A Bad Time
For the 2,922nd day in a row, it's the stupidest day in American history. I am spending the day addressing save the dates for my wedding and slow-cooking some short rib. It feels strange to be going about my usual business during world-historical moments, but since "weeks where decades happen" have been happening with an alarming regularity for quite some time, it seems like the only thing to do. In retrospect this was a pretty bad week to decide to give Bluesky a shot. I used Skybridge to impo
12 Strong
'Murica! Probably a story worth being told but it ends up being a mediocre action movie with a foreign policy disaster as the backdrop.
Berlin – Am Bahnhof Hackescher Markt
Am Bahnhof Hackescher Markt
Berlin – Am Bahnhof Hackescher Markt
Am Bahnhof Hackescher Markt
The Night House
FUCK That's it. That's all I've got — most of what I've got. A meditation on grief that wraps a loss up in horror, depression, isolation and suicidal ideation. Is any of this real? How could someone you loved disappear so abruptly, violently and leave only clues that lead you deeper and deeper into the abyss? Rebecca Hall is incredible as Beth (she's generally incredible wherever she's cast). Go watch it.
Berliner Funkturm
Berliner Funkturm am Messegelände
Chickenhawk
Ostensibly about the Vietnam war but laser-focused on the author — Robert Mason's — experience flying a helicopter in assault missions over the course of a year-long deployment. Mason manages to avoid the broader, thornier historical context and relay what he went through, what his fellow soldiers went through and what he saw first person. It can get repetitive, but that repetition is a product of his assignments. A compelling first-hand account, but not the one you're looking for if you're looking for a discussion of the broader geopolitical or moral implications of the conflict. Boots on the ground, rotors up, try to make it home and all that. : I don't know if this is a thing.